Geert Vermeire (Belgium) is curator, artist, poet with a focus on spatial writing, locative sound & performance and social practices. He develops collaborative processes, departing from the ethical involvement of cultural action, together with other creatives and activists comprising ecologists, anthropologists, musicologists, engineers and multimedia artists.
Co-founder and director of Loctive Media Supercluster, managing CGeomap, collaborative locative media mapping. Specific interest in his practice goes to walking as a creative instrument, unfolding around human connections, text and space, resulting in works of arts, site-specific interventions, locative media and in creative walks engaging both with the landscape and with those walking through the landscape.
Full bio:
Geert Vermeire was part of the noTours team by Escoitar and core-member of CGeomap. He is, together with Fred Adam, co-founder/co-coordinator of the online project Supercluster: collaborative meeting grounds for locative media in the XXI century and co-founder/co-coordinator of the global community event Sound Walk September.
He is managing the Milena principle since 2003, an interdisciplinary art collective with a focus on ecology and science, and founder-coordinator of the global walking arts community "Made of Walking": creative encounters/conferences about walking arts organized in Greece, France, Cyprus and in Portugal. In 2019 he co-founded "walk listen create", a global online platform for walking creatives.
In 2019 he was as well co-coordinator of the e-Amazonia, interdisciplinary residency in the Amazon rainforest and a platform for digital arts with an ecological focus, and became European curator of Into the Artmosphere/Oika, a global eco-arts creation project, with environmental scientist Rich Blundell, with courses and curated events in Portugal, UK and in Greece.
As a curator he commissioned for the Benaki Museum Athens in 2016 a series of walking performances, interactive installations, technological intermediated walks and workshops, by the Spatial Media Group - Dimitris Charitos, Iouliani Theona, Charalampos Rizopoulos, Penny Papageorgopoulou), New Technology Lab Kapodistrian University of Athens / Echoes, Akoo-o / SonicPlanet, Bill Psarras and Geopoetics / Anna Tzakou.
The intersections between new media, dance and walking practices was a further field of his curatorial activity in the durational project Urban Emptiness in Cyprus with NeMe Arts Center, Dance House Limassol/Open House Dance Festival, University of Technology Cyprus, European University Cyprus and Dance House Nicosia in collaboration with the Aegean University - Dept of Cultural Technology Mytilini, and as well during the project "Mediterranean Bodies"/ “the Underwater Heart of the Mediterranean” (new technology, performance, dance) in Greece, Cyprus, France and Lebanon (Quasi Stellar (GR), Pelma (CY) and DK-Bel (FR)).
Last but not least, working with communities, young artists, artists with disabilities, residents, immigrants and minority groups is a key element in the work of Geert Vermeire, reflected in the durational projects "A Balkan Tale" (Greece, and various cultural institutions and museums in the Balkan), "Listening to eachother" and Athens Sound Map (Goethe Institut Athens, Athens School of Fine Arts), in his involvement with activist's and citizen's groups in Greece (Atenistas, Athens) and other countries Belgium (Transitie / SOLIED, Sint Niklaas), Spain (Escoitar, Santiago de Compostela), Poland (Miastograf, Lodz), Germany (LTGJ, Jahnishausen / Atelier Latent, Leipzig), in his collaboration with the choreographers Sophie Bulbulyan (Compagnie DK-Bel, FR), Apostolia Papadamaki (Quasi Stellar, GR), Lia Haraki (Pelma, CY) on projects involving young artists / dancers with disabilities, leading for example in 2015 to the first ever underwater sea dance performance "Underwater heart of the Mediterranean", bringing together as well new media artists with young dancers, with and without disabilities.
Regurally he engages in projects for children, for example with an active role in the project the City Rings, facilitating intercultural exchange via walking and sound arts between children throughout Europe.
As curator he worked for the Museum of Contemporary Art Ghent (B), City of Tongeren Cultural Center / Gallo Roman Museum - Manifesta 9 (B), E-Culture Fair/World Creativity Forum Hasselt (B), QO-2 Brussels (B), Media Art Fair / Contemporary Art Ruhr - Ruhr Triennale Essen (D), Festival Encontros da Imagem (PT), Museu Nogueira da Silva / Museu Biscainhos Braga (PT), GNRation Center for digital arts (PT), Fundacao José Saramago Lisbon (PT), the National Museum of Brasilia (Brazil), the National Library of Brasilia (Brazil), the International Poetry Festival Brasilia (Brazil), Athens Science Festival (GR), TAF metamatic Athens (GR). the Goethe Institut Balkan (Athens) and the Digital Art Festival BAW Tirgu Mures (RO).
He curated as well exhibitions with young artists and students for the Athens School of Fine Arts, the National Kapodistrian University of Athens, National Technical University of Athens - School of Architecture, University of Thessaly - Architecture Department, University of Western Macedonia / Department of Fine Arts in Florina, RITCS School of Arts Brussels (B), Royal Academy of Fine Arts (Brussels), Folkwang University of the Arts Essen (D), Faculty of Fine Arts - University Lisbon (PT), Edinburgh College of Art (UK), University of Sao Paulo (BR), at Tisch School of Arts - New York University and Parsons New School New York (US).
